Local family looks to raise awareness about ITP

GRUNDY CENTER – September is National ITP Awareness month, and one local family affected by the rare illness now hopes to bring attention to the disease by sharing their story.
Katie Thornton-Lang remembers one day after wrestling practice when her 8-year-old son Michael came home with a large, raised bruise on his arm. Chalking it up to nothing more than a routine bruise from practice, she sent him off to bed. In the morning, though, she became worried when another large, raised bruise appeared on her son’s other arm, nearly covering it entirely. She was startled at how quickly the bruise appeared, and even more worrisome was the fact that her son couldn’t remember having hurt his arm at all.
That day, she took Michael to the doctor and had his blood work done. The results she got back were startling.
“A normal platelet count is between 150,000 to 450,000,” she said. “Michael’s levels were at 3,000. The doctor called us after hours that night and said, ‘ You need to get him to the hospital right away.’”
So Thornton-Lang and her son drove to the hospital in Waterloo, and were then transferred to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City. By midnight, Michael was receiving his first blood infusion, and was promptly diagnosed with ITP.
ITP, which stands for Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, is a rare disorder that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. each year.
For the full story, see the September 1 issue of The Grundy Register.